30 January 2012 9:47 PM

The other Britain

Last Thursday night I was on BBC TV’s Question Time in Plymouth, which you can view here.

The last question on the show came from a woman who asked whether, ‘since Israel has many more nuclear weapons than Iran’, we should agree with President Obama’s statement that no option (in other words, war with Iran) should be ruled out.

The woman who asked this question was doubtless a reasonable, moderate person with a benevolent and kindly approach to humanity, who would be astonished to be told there was anything shocking about her basic premise.

But the equation she made was of course obnoxious. There is no reasonable equation to be made between Israel and Iran over their possession of nuclear weapons. Israel’s nuclear weapons – like those in the possession of every true democracy – are intended solely for the country’s defence against attack.

Israel, moreover, is in the unique position of being threatened with extinction by most of its neighbours -- of which the most terrifying is Iran, which regularly announces its intention to wipe Israel off the map and is racing to develop nuclear weapons with which to realise that infernal aim. To equate Israel’s nuclear weapons with those of Iran is thus to equate the prospective perpetrators of genocide with the prospective victims of that genocide.

Behind this astonishing failure to grasp the fact that if the Iranian regime is not stopped a second genocide of the Jews is in the making lies the corresponding failure of the British public to understand the scale of the evil and the threat, not only to Israel but to the west and to the peace of the world, represented by the fanatical and apocalyptic Iranian regime.

The historical precedent for the Iranian crisis is not, as the audience seemed to believe, that ‘we were taken to war in Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction which never existed' (which I don’t believe was the case either, but let that pass for now). The proper analogy is with the 1930s, when Britain supported the appeasement of Nazi Germany on the basis that the threat posed by Hitler was much exaggerated.

That disturbing little episode on Question Time was very much on my mind the following morning, which happened to be Holocaust Memorial Day and which found me in Beth Shalom, Britain’s first Holocaust centre situated in Laxton, Nottinghamshire. Beth Shalom is the creation of the wonderful Smith brothers, Stephen and James, and is dedicated to exploring the history and implications of the Holocaust in order to promote an understanding of the roots of discrimination and prejudice.

It specialises in teaching this to young children, which it seems to do with a very sensitive awareness of what is appropriate. In particular its exhibition of ‘The Journey’, in which the destruction of European Jewry is related through the eyes of a child, is a triumph of accessibility, imaginative projection and tact.

But what moved me so much at Beth Shalom was not just the images and exhibits on display of the lost world of European Jewry. Nor was it just that Holocaust survivors, now elderly and frail, each lit a candle in memory of their loved ones and the others who had been murdered in Europe -- sometimes their entire families. These were experiences about which they had never spoken until they started coming to Beth Shalom, which has become as a result their home from home.

Nor was it just the poignant presentations by young schoolchildren who spoke about what they had learned from listening to these survivors’ stories – lessons they had absorbed about our common humanity.

No, the most moving thing of all was that, as we listened to those who as refugee children had fled the Holocaust on the Kindertransport and had been taken in by decent English people whose hearts and consciences had been touched by their plight, it was possible to see an unbroken line running from those who had stood up then for basic human decency to those who last Friday shed tears of sympathy for the elderly survivors who once had been those children finding refuge in Britain from genocide.

In mourning an entire culture that had been lost, it was suddenly possible to see that the best of England’s culture has not been lost – not yet -- and indeed lives on in at least some of its children.

Beth Shalom was set up to apply to today’s challenges the lessons of memory. Those on Question Time who equated the victims of genocide with its would-be perpetrators have yet to learn the lessons of memory. They represent one Britain, an ugly, ignorant, irrational Britain, a Britain that isn't new but tragically is growing. Beth Shalom, however, shows us that there is still another Britain, the Britain that was once a byword for quiet and stolid decency – the Britain of my memory.

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Thank you Melaine Phillips for reminding us of that other Britain characterised in your phrase as 'a byword for quiet and stolid decency'. I, too, try to believe in it, yet remain amazed & disgusted by the deep & virulent anti-Israeli sentiment expressed routinely by supposedly thinking people. This is always tied up with the 'I hate anything & everything American' brigade. I am sure there are many people in Israel who yearn to live in peace with their neighbours, free from this endless hate propaganda, just as there are many people in Iran who want nothing more than to get on in their chosen field and travel the world. Maybe the new technology is the means to bring these groups to-gether, just as it has helped to undermine autocratic regimes across the world.

It seems that the plethora of history programs on the BBC about the Middle East are only adding fuel to the fire of anti-semitic and anti-zionist feeling in the British public at large. Anybody having any understanding of history, particularly where Israel, Jerusalem and the Jewish community are concerned will know that the jewish people have always been scapegoated for the world's ills no matter where you look, and the tide is turning once again.
Even with the importance of Holocaust memorial day, which everyone politically agrees with, the 'never again' statement rings hollow on the lips of most politicians when it comes to a choice between Israel and the rest of the world.
The use of the word 'peace' on the lips of Ahmadinejad DOES NOT mean 'peace' as we understand it to mean. It never has and never will.
This is not just a tribal thing. For the sake of world domination the Islamic community will band together if it is a choice of 'stand with us or lose your head'. That is what history tells us.

Philip G's statement in one of the previous comments is naive. He need only read the last few UN statements that have been made by the President of Iran to understand what the true rhetoric is.

This country will capitulate again and again where the nation of Israel is concerned because unfortunately, secretly they believe that it should not exist either, then all the problems would go away.
How wrong they are!

Dear God. What about the woman who was irritated by the fact that we have to put liquids in plastic bags to board a plane, and therefore - therefore! - we shouldn't do anything about Iran because, er, she doesn't believe in war.

I bet the lights are burning late into the night in the White House and the Pentagon deciding what to do about Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Stand by and watch for now? That could be fatal. The President has to balance that with his re-election in November and the American public's war-weariness.

"a woman who asked whether, ‘since Israel has many more nuclear weapons than Iran’" - In 1936 Hitler broke the Versailles Treaty by occupying Rhineland. Since Britain and France had "many more" weapons than Germany, according to the woman's logic, they were right not to take action. But history proves that approach wrong: had they intervened, WWII would have been averted and millions of lives saved. The Allies did nothing because they wishfully thought Hitler wasn't really aggressive. Today the distinction between unprovoked aggression and legitimate defence is blurred and, when it comes to Israel, totally obliterated. The woman should be treated with compassion as an innocent victim of the media.

Tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons can clearly be used for aggression as well as defence. Both Israel and the US include the use of such weapons in their battle plans. Both launch wars of aggression which they call defensive.

Iran is surrounded by nuclear powers, two of whom threaten it with “regime change”, and have engaged in covert war against it for thirty years.

Compare Israel's military capability with the capabilities of all its neighbours put together, and judge how seriously Israel takes any threat from them. All Israel's neighbours have offered peace and full diplomatic recognition in return for a two state resolution.

Various Iranian politicians and clerics threaten the “Zionist entity”. (It is not entirely clear that anyone with any power or authority means by that the death of the population living under the Zionist regime, Jewish or Arab.) Iran, along with all the other Muslim states, has undertaken to accept any agreement the Palestinians reach with Israel, in particular a two state agreement on the Green Line.

There is no evidence that the Iranian regime is willing to accept its own annihilation to destroy the “Zionist entity”.

There are some similarities between US (and Israeli) policy toward Iran and toward Iraq, as well as differences. Saddam was one of “our” thugs, who disobeyed. The Iranian regime overthrew one of “our” thugs, and ever since has refused to obey. It is clear that both need to be taught obedience and both have to be made an example of.

There is no analogy with the 1930s.

The Holocaust should always be remembered. Every generation should learn about what the Nazis did to the Jews of Europe (and others). The Holocaust cannot with any decency be used to justify anyone's policies in the Middle East.

I can't find any evidence that Iran 'regularly announces its intention to wipe Israel off the map'. Ahmadinejad said a similar phrase once (when quoting Khomeini), but what he actually said can be more accurately translated as 'the regime occupying Jerusalem should vanish from the pages of time'. A statement about regime change, not a threat of imminent attack.

The perpetuation of this oft quoted mistranslation only serves to keep this animosity (which is more accurately fuelled by childish tribal notions) charged.

At the time of the broadcast, I was reading 'Get Her off the Pitch' by Lynne Truss. Although I do always watch Question Time, I mistook Lynne for Liz Truss (I misread my set top box's information). Oh well.

Miss Philllps, as always, you were the sole small 'c' conservative and sinsible voice on the panel.

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